About

My name is Ben Curtis, I’ve been living in Madrid, Spain for many years, co-running the Spanish-learning website Notes in Spanish with my wife Marina.

I once asked a Buddhist monk what being a monk was all about, and he replied that it was about ‘looking at ideas… ideas about what society thinks brings us happiness’.

I thought, ‘Great, I don’t have to become a monk to do that.’

In fact, this is something that I’ve been thinking about, reading about and spending a lot of time on over the last few years – happiness, mindfulness, Being… it almost certainly started with a philosophy degree in the 1990s, and a module on Buddhist philosophy.

For many years I attended summer retreats at Plum Village in France, home of the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and in 2013-14 spent a year helping to organise a two week tour of Spain by Thich Nhat Hanh and 50 of his monastics.

This website, Being Happiness, started out simply as a way of sharing my personal experiences and discoveries in these realms – with the idea that others might find these interesting and useful too. Now, it includes the Being Happiness podcast.

Listen to the Podcast

We use our own and third party cookies to offer you a better navigation experience, analyse traffic to the site, and personalise content. More info on cookies and managing them. If you continue to use this site, you accept the use of these cookies.Ok